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Sponsored video: The hidden charges of investing

Your Money
Written By:
Your Money
Posted:
Updated:
10/06/2013

Charles Stanley Direct looks at the hidden charges investors typically pay to hold funds and explains why its pricing model is more transparent.

If you have bought unit trust or OEIC investment funds, including those in an ISA or SIPP, you are probably still paying commission and charges every year to the adviser who arranged the purchase, and the fund platform on which you hold the investments.

These can add up to at least 50 per cent of the annual management charge taken from your fund. The video below looks at the impact these charges can have on your investment, and explains how the charging model used by Charles Stanley Direct could save you money.  

More about fund charging

From January 2013, if you buy a new fund through a financial adviser, you cannot be charged through the old ‘bundled’ pricing structure. A similar rule is being introduced in 2014 for funds bought via discount brokers or fund supermarkets by direct investors without an adviser.

Why wait? Charles Stanley Direct offers commission-free pricing now. For funds, it charges an annual platform fee of 0.25 per cent of your first £500,000 of investments, which drops to 0.15 per cent when you hold more than £500,000.

This is likely to be less than you are currently paying – even if you receive an annual cashback bonus or rebate on commission of 50 per cent or more.

So when you buy an investment fund from Charles Stanley Direct, you pay for the expert investment management of that fund year by year. That is it. No initial fees in almost all cases. No dealing charges. No commission. Just a separate, transparent platform fee.

If you transfer a fund to Charles Stanley Direct which already has ongoing commission built in, as it almost certainly will, your existing holdings will be converted to the clean, commission-free share class so you benefit. If there is no clean, commission-free share class available on a fund you wish to transfer, Charles Stanley Direct will continue to hold the existing ‘dirty’ share class on your behalf.

There will be no rebates on these share classes but also no platform fee will be charged.

This is the future of fund investing.